Table of Contents
Vivekananda Samiti at IIT Kanpur records a short talk by Swami Sarvapriyananda. He gives awareness a Sanskrit name, chaitanya, and sets it next to thought and flesh. A teacher, he says, lays out five marks. The opening mark is that awareness stands outside both. Physiology, as he sketches it, treats thought and awareness as something the brain manufactures. He rejects that picture. Another mark is that awareness fills thought and flesh and lets them work. A further mark is that it is not shut inside one skull. People come to notice it only while thought and flesh are at work. Take those away and it remains, yet nobody meets it. He holds up one hand in the room’s lamplight. The glow is not manufactured by the hand. It fills the hand, it is also present past the hand, and it is noticed only where the hand catches it. Pull the hand away and the glow is still in the room, unmet. He offers the five marks as a short way into an old teaching.
Key points
- Vivekananda Samiti at IIT Kanpur records Swami Sarvapriyananda.
- He gives awareness the Sanskrit name chaitanya and sets it next to thought and flesh.
- Physiology, as he sketches it, treats awareness as something the brain manufactures.
- He says it fills thought and flesh, is not shut inside one skull, and is noticed only while they work.
- A hand held in lamplight is his picture of a glow that remains when the hand is gone.
Short quotes
consciousness is not a part of your body or your mind
Swami Sarvapriyananda, Sarvapriyananda on awareness
He says awareness stands outside both thought and flesh. Watch at 1:00
Video by Vivekananda Samiti, IIT Kanpur. Watch on YouTube.